Question

PART A

A seamstress needs to cut 15-inch pieces of ribbon from a roll of ribbon that is 9 feet in length.
What is the greatest number of 15-inch pieces the seamstress can cut from 5 of these rolls of ribbon?
Enter your answer in the box below.
pieces

Answer 1

35 pieces

(the leftover bits could be cobbled together to make one more, but that's probably just trying too hard. I wouldn't count it.)

Explanation:

You can do this with everything in inches or with everything in feet.

The length of the cut ribbon is 15 inches. This is 1.25 feet (bc 15/12 = 1.25). The total length of the roll is 9 feet, which is 108 inches.

Either:

9 ÷ 1.25

OR 108÷15

Both of these calculations give the answer 7.2

This means that the seamstress can cut 7 pieces from the roll. There will be a little bit leftover but not enough to cut an 8th piece.

There are 5 rolls of ribbon to begin with. If 7 pieces can be cut from one roll, the multiply by 5 to find what can be cut from all 5 rolls.

7 × 5 = 35

The seamstress can cut 35 15-inches pieces of ribbon from her stash of 5 rolls.